@RuslanProvod you are ready I m ready we have to make a fight

— Bam Bam Brandon Rios (@Brandon_Rios1) December 31, 2013

By Chris Williams: Having been reduced to that of a punching bag status in his embarrassing one-sided 12 round unanimous decision loss to Manny Pacquiao last month in Macao, China, former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (31-2-1, 23 KO’s) is trying for a change of luck in a hoped for fight against WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s) next. Rios is pushing for the fight against the Russian, and he’s getting encouragement from him because Provodnikov, whether he’s serious or not, says he’s up for the fight.

Provodnikov said on his twitter earlier this month: “@Brandon_Rios1 I agree we can make a great fight… I’m ready.”

After that twitter post from Provodnikov, he went quiet on the subject, but Rios is continuing to try and push for the fight by sending the twitter post from today. Rios has lost his last two fights to Mike Alvarado and Pacquiao, and so it’s difficult to imagine that the World Boxing Organization would sanction a fight under those circumstances. How does the WBO allow a fighter with consecutive defeats like Rios fight for a world title against Provodnikov. The only way I see a fight of this kind taking place is with no title on the line, and it just being one of the undercard fights on Pacquiao’s next pay-per-view card.

I would hope that Bob Arum wouldn’t make a Rios-Provodnikov fight a co-feature for the Pacquiao fight card, because it would look very silly with Provodnikov fighting the guy that Pacquiao just got finished easily beating in a very dull fight – and dull fight card – by the scores 119-109, 120-108, 118-110. If Arum wants to pump up the PPV numbers for Pacquiao’s PPV cards then he’s going to need to raise the quality of the fights and the fighters on the card. That means you’ve got to do a lot better than putting Rios vs. Provodnikov as the co-feature on that card. I see a Rios-Provodnikov fight as an off TV fight, because you can’t expect fans to want to pay to see Rios, with back to back losses, fighting Provodnikov. That’s just sad match-making.

Rios needs to rebuild himself the way that normal fighters do after they’ve lost their last two fights. You don’t see them getting world title shots off of back to back defeats. That’s just wrong.